Your company - every manufacturer, regardless of size - is part of a supply chain. You order parts and supplies from vendors; you ship parts to customers. This is the way it's been in American manufacturing, at least since Henry Ford gave up on the notion that he could bring raw iron ore into one end of his massive Detroit-area Rouge Plant and drive completed Model Ts out the other.
But, according to a study recently commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers and The Manufacturing Institute, traditional supply chains are morphing under the pressure of a globalizing economy, and companies sticking with the tried-and-true supply-chain rules are putting their businesses in jeopardy by not adapting.
